Dani Zyp is Heart of the City’s Spoken Word Director for the 2025 season. “I’m very excited to have been appointed,” she says about her new role. “I have been going to Heart of the City for years under various people’s stewardship. I would like to expand things a little bit to include music with words. Spoken word along with music is an important development in my own life and so I would like to give everyone an opportunity to find a way to share their spoken word poem with music.”

Dani told me about her experience the first time she volunteered for Heart of the City. “When I put out my fourth book, The Book of Women’s Mysteries and One Man’s Confusion (which was an anthology of six poets), I brought it with me to my volunteer shift at Heart of the City in the green room giving out packages to musicians. Mike Siek was running the main stage and Mike came back and said, ‘So and So can’t make it. Can anyone fill in?’ My hand shot up before I even thought about it and I said, ‘I’ve got my poetry book here’ and he said, ‘get up there!’ Paula Kirman got a shot of me, which was so special. It was a big moment for me.”

Dani, who plays music under the name “Ladi Harp”, is involved in a number of artistic mediums. “My first love was visual art. I started drawing at a very young age. I am from a very artistic family. I wrote my own short story at five years old. I illustrated it with a white horse, jumping over the fence of a church yard to escape. At five years old!” Dani said, laughing.

“Writing became my priority as time went on. I’ve done many shows and poetry open stages as well as releasing seven books. Writing is still my number one. Visual art would be my second love and thirdly would be music. I’m very thankful and grateful for those artistic mediums.”

Dani also wrote the curriculum for and co-facilitated a course called “Art Around the House” for the Wellness Network, which is headquartered in the Boyle Street neighourhood. “I work on a contract basis for the Wellness Network. It is a peer supported network that offers courses. All the courses are designed to help with your mental wellness and are run by people with lived experience of mental health challenges. I put in a proposal about art as meditation. It was accepted and we are hoping the class will be coming back on Zoom,” Dani explained about “Art Around the House,” which was originally offered in person.

Dani is currently producing and hosting an irregular series from time to time at the Kasbar on Whyte Avenue, where the now-defunct Raving Poets used to hold their open stage. The series is designed for spoken word artists to share their work with a band improvising music behind them, inspired by the Raving Poets. She is also part of a musical duo called Oma’s Girls, performing at seniors homes and looking for other gigs. In March she shot a music video for a song called “Beautiful Disaster” with local photographer Rob Swyrd. Dani hopes it will be released in April and will be available to view on her website (danizyp.ca), where you can find her work including her visual art, poetry books, a schedule of events she is producing.

Corine Demas lives in McCauley where she is the President of the McCauley Community League and the Executive Director with the Heart of the City Festival.